MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

Results tagged ‘ Expos ’

Some notes on the Cubs’ season, supplied by baseball historian Ed Hartig:

* The Cubs have lost eight games by double digits this year. The last time they reached that number was in 1953 when they lost a club-worst nine games by at least 10 runs. They also lost nine games by at least 10 runs in 1895.

* The Cubs have lost five games by at least a dozen runs this season. The only other time in franchise history that has happened was in 1895 when they lost once by 12 runs, three times by 13 and once by 17. The Cubs have never lost six games by at least 12 runs in a season.

* Entering this season, the Cubs had not lost by at least 15 runs since May 20, 1996 (an 18-1 loss in Atlanta). They have now done it twice in the last four games. Before this year, the last time the Cubs lost by at least 15 runs twice in the same season was 1977.

On April 27, 1977, the Cubs lost 21-3 at home against the Cardinals. On July 4 that year, they lost 19-3 at home against the Expos in the first game of a doubleheader. The July 4 game is also memorable for two other things: One, Andre Dawson hit his first Wrigley Field home run that game (obviously, with Montreal). Two, Cubs outfielder/first baseman Larry Biittner pitched the final 1 1/3 innings, giving up three home runs (including Dawson’s) and striking out three. Biittner also nearly hit batter Del Unser with a pitch that drew a warning from umpire Terry Tata and an automatic $50 fine from the league. Newspaper accounts say that the the pitch was going so slowly that it was “almost going backwards”.

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